Climate Refugees Are Leaving the Farm Behind

I write about agri-business and the impact of social entrepreneurship.

When speaking at the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit at Stanford University last month, President Obama described Silicon Valley as one of the “great hubs of innovation and entrepreneurship.” Whether for software, sunshine or soil, California has always been a place to which people eagerly flock.

Woody Guthrie chronicled this fact in his folk songs. In the 1930s, after years of unsustainable agricultural production, golden wheat fields in the American Midwest were decimated by a severe, decade-long drought. Millions of acres of farmland turned to wasteland during the Dust Bowl, which prompted the largest migration in American history within a short window of time. By 1940, 2.5 million people had moved off the Great Plains. Many of these “Dust Bowl refugees,” as Mr. Guthrie sang about, journeyed to California in search of economic opportunities and a better life.

The stories of these migrant farmers were also famously told by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath: "They were hungry, and they were fierce. And they had hoped to find a home, and they found only hatred."

Steinbeck originally penned those words at his home not far from where the Global Entrepreneurship Summit took place. There, I was participating on a panel with Gayle Smith, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), discussing the role of the U.S. government in supporting entrepreneurship in farming communities around the world. In her words, “USAID over the last several years has built into the architecture and the skeleton of the agency, the ability to promote entrepreneurship.”

The thought of a climate-induced mass economic migration within the United States feels more like the plot of a classic American text than a possible reality. But nowadays the migrants that Steinbeck describes can be found elsewhere. Today, millions of the world’s most vulnerable people are fleeing from places where agriculture remains the backbone of rural economies, as the dire consequences of climate change—crop failure due to drought, for example—come into focus.

The week before attending the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, I was visiting with Root Capital clients in West Africa—home to the world’s youngest and fastest-growing populations. I didn’t spend time in the bustling capitals of Abidjan or Accra, but instead visited with entrepreneurs in rural Senegal, where extreme and unpredictable weather conditions are making agriculture an increasingly risky and unprofitable business.

A local farming community in Burkina Faso. Credit: Root Capital.

Like in most developing countries, agriculture remains the primary means of income for the majority of Senegal’s population. Farmers of the Sahel are on the front line of climate change. Although they’re no longer able to cultivate the dry, cracked soil, they still have a hunger for work. For them, migrating is perceived not as a choice, but as a simple economic necessity. They are part of the new generation of climate refugees.

In his recent three-part series “Out of Africa,”New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman chronicles the hardship for rural African migrants. He notes how each night, under the cloak of darkness, hundreds of young African farmers leave their families and children, and travel north for a chance—even the slightest chance—at prosperity.

In what almost seems to be a continuation of the story that Steinbeck started eight decades prior, Friedman describes his visit to Ndiamaguene, a village of mud-brick homes in the far northwest region of Senegal. He explains how the “climate-hammered farmlands” can no longer feed the village’s population, and how the men have left in search of any job that will pay them enough to live on and send some money back to their wives or parents.

“Africans have a long history of migration, but mostly within Africa and their own countries,” Friedman writes. “But the land and the climate cannot sustain enough of them anymore. And they don’t want a benefit concert in Central Park or Hyde Park. They want what they see on their cellphones — Europe, which involves a trek across the desert and a boat across the sea. But who can blame them?” He’s absolutely right. Until people can find meaningful economic opportunities in their communities, they will continue to migrate.

Meanwhile, in Central America – just south of California – the warmer temperatures and erratic rainfall that come with climate change have led to the unprecedented spread of coffee leaf rust, a crop disease that dramatically reduces yields and can destroy entire farms. Since 2013, the leaf rust epidemic has led to the loss of 1.7 million jobs for coffee producers and farmworkers, according to coffee industry experts. Without steady income, many have migrated elsewhere in search of work. They, too, are part of the new generation of climate refugees.

Globally, the number of displaced people is at an historic high: nearly 60 million in 2014, according to the United Nations. Of course, there are many drivers that cause people to migrate—conflict, political instability and violence—and it is easy to overlook the less noticeable role that climate change plays in driving people from their communities and countries. The U.S. Department of Defense calls climate change a “threat multiplier” because of its ability to exacerbate many other challenges, including terrorism.

For example, a recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences directly links climate change as a contributing factor to the war in Syria. Researchers found that the 2007−2010 drought, the worst in recorded history, contributed to the conflict in Syria. “It’s now believed that drought and crop failures and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest in Syria,” explained President Obama in a speech last year.

Today, migration is sparking political controversy, debate and even a referendum in the United Kingdom. I, for one, say we should hold people in high esteem who are willing to go to lengths greater than those that most ever will to find a better life.

At the peak of the Dust Bowl, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his second inaugural address. “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much,” he said. “It is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” Well, today, the vast majority of those who “have too little” share a common profession: they are farmers. According to the World Bank, 70 percent of the world's poor who live in rural areas, agriculture is the main source of income and employment.

These men and women cultivate small plots of land to meet their own food needs and, when possible, sell surpluses to earn income. They don’t want to leave their homes, but they do want a suitable life. And for them, like the “Dust Bowl refugees” of the 1930s, opportunities for a better future often begin in the soil.

Therefore, as concerns over global migration rise, a lot more attention must be paid to promoting climate-smart agriculture and helping the world’s farmers become more resilient to climate change over the long term. The Dust Bowl was a cautionary tale, and the lessons learned from it are just as important today as they were back then.

For example, under President Roosevelt’s New Deal, soil conservation and land management programs became national priorities almost overnight, and farmers quickly adopted sustainable farming practices, like contour plowing and crop rotation. Today, farmers require high-yielding, drought-resistant varieties of staple crops like maize, millet and sorghum; compost, fertilizer and other crop inputs; micro-drip irrigation and rainwater harvesting systems; and a network of agricultural extension workers to train them. Think of it as a modern-age New Deal. Simply put, to reduce migratory pressure, we need to give people a reason to stay.

After attending the Global Entrepreneurship Summit at Stanford, I’m convinced that, if farmers in the Sahel can benefit from the same conditions that allow Silicon Valley’s tech entrepreneurs to thrive—reliable access to talent, training and capital—then farming can become a dependable source of income and a viable career for the next generation. Woody Guthrie, who musically captured the heartache of 2.5 million Americans fleeing famine in the Great Plains, would expect nothing less.